Beachfront owners draw lines in sand

A fight over public access to Great Lakes shoreline is playing out in Ohio and Michigan courts

September 04, 2004|By John Bebow, Tribune staff reporter.

All retiree Joan Glass wants to do is to walk on the beach near her home along Lake Huron.

But thanks to a ruling by the Michigan Court of Appeals about what was initially a minor spat between Glass and her neighbors, she and millions of others who use Michigan's beaches during the summer no longer have the right to stray beyond the water line when walking in front of private homes.

The Michigan case and another in Ohio have grown into a fight over public access to hundreds of miles of picturesque Great Lakes shoreline. In Michigan alone, more than 10 million tourists visit its waterfronts and beaches each year. Visitors from Illinois spent a combined 17 million days in 2002 in Michigan, tourism officials estimated.

"People are all of a sudden moving here and saying, `This is mine! This is mine!' " Glass said. "The whole thing is ridiculous."

Jean Hauflaire, a 77-year-old Chicago native who owns a home along Lake Michigan in New Buffalo, supports the ruling. Too often, she said, spillover visitors from a neighboring public beach have spoiled the view.

"This is our back yard," Hauflaire said. "Would you want people sitting and drinking in your back yard?"

The Michigan dispute started four years ago in Alcona County, 200 miles north of Detroit. Glass trimmed bushes in her easement along the Lake Huron shore. Neighbors Richard and Kathleen Goeckel objected to the bush trimming and told Glass she was no longer welcome to walk the beach in front of their home. Glass sued, had her beachcombing rights restored by a local court, but lost those rights again with the appeals court ruling.

The Goeckels could not be reached for comment. But they have many defenders awaiting the Michigan Supreme Court's decision, as early as this fall, on whether to weigh in on Glass vs. Goeckel. A wide coalition of bankers, resort owners and the Michigan Chamber of Commerce argues that the need for "stable and predictable property ownership laws" requires that the appeals court decision be upheld.

Environmentalists "make it out like we want to put fences up to the water's edge--and that's not the intent at all," said Ernie Krygier, president of Save Our Shoreline, a property rights group boasting some 2,000 members throughout the Great Lakes basin.

"It's all about principle," said Krygier, who lives on Lake Huron's Saginaw Bay. "If there are 100 homes on the water, you might have one goofy enough to want to keep people off the beach."

Joel Brammeier, manager of habitat programs for the 1,000-member Lake Michigan Federation in Chicago, said "a grand tradition of beach walking" along the Great Lakes is at stake.

If the state Supreme Court takes the case, justices could rule anywhere between granting visitors the right to legally meander the full beach to specifically allowing beach blockades.

Access varies among states

While the public's right to the waters of the Great Lakes is unquestioned, beach access varies from state to state.

Michigan law was unclear before Glass vs. Goeckel. Some jurisdictions enforced a water's-edge boundary, while open beachcombing was the informal rule in many locales. In Illinois and Wisconsin, the law is the same as what the Michigan court recently ruled: Walkers along private beaches are not trespassing as long as they keep their feet wet. Indiana allows public access up to the ordinary high-water mark of Lake Michigan.

In Ohio, Lake Erie cottage owners are suing the state Department of Natural Resources to end public ownership claims up to the high-water mark, or gain compensation for the state "taking" of beaches.

"Basically, we're trying to get our deeds honored," said Tony Yankel, president of the Ohio Lakefront Group. Many of his members have property titles that specifically grant ownership to Lake Erie's low-water mark--in some cases, actually into the lake itself.

"People want the right to kick people out," he said, seeking to stop intruders at his beach in Cleveland's west suburbs. They have vandalized his Jet Ski and left behind condoms and broken beer bottles.

If the property owners win, "it would make it illegal for the average Ohioan to walk the beach--a right they've enjoyed for more than 200 years," said Jim Lynch, a Department of Natural Resources spokesman.

A silver lining

At least one environmentalist sees a silver lining to all the fighting.

Charles Davis, a Chicago architect who leads a Michigan-based group called Preserve the Dunes, said new beach restrictions could keep off-road vehicles from sensitive dune habitat. And, Davis predicted, cottage-owners' self-interest will keep the beaches open for civilized public access.

"If I cut off access to the beach, my neighbor could do the same thing," said Davis, who owns Lake Michigan beachfront in Michigan's Covert Township.